Since I reject the "new testament," you're really asking the wrong person. However, as a former Fundamentalist Protestant I will be glad to tell you why that community abandons its literalism on that occasion and that occasion alone. There are two reasons and they're both quite simple really.
1)In order to change the bread and wine into the body and blood, one must have a sacerdotal order with the power to do this. As you are quite aware, Fundamentalist Protestants do not have this priesthood and they of course cannot create one out of whole cloth. And if they were to accept the priesthoods of the ancient liturgical churches they would ipso facto have to accept all the doctrines of those churches without exception. So because they don't have a sacerdotal priesthood and can't accept the baggage of those that exist, they reject the literal meaning.
2)Feeding on such a sacrament over the course of a lifetime implies that salvation is a lifelong process, with progress and regress along the way. This lifelong process of salvation contradicts the soteriology of Fundamentalist Protestants so, once again, they reject the literal meaning.
Now since I have been kind enough to answer your question, perhaps you will consider telling me why the Catholic Church rejects the literal historical truth of Genesis 1-11. Just what "baggage" does that section have that in antithetical to Catholicism? Is it the perspecuity of scripture? Does it imply sola scriptura? If so, why? Why did the church fathers almost solidly accept the literal interpretation (and yes, I know about Augustine, so please let's net get into that)? Perhaps such an interpretation is no longer so benign at a time when advocates of the two doctrines above are loud in their condemnation of Catholicism? Does higher criticism somehow "vindicate" the authority of the Church's oral tradition? Or is it merely because Genesis 1-11 is associated with "white trash?"
As you perhaps know (though probably not), I believe in neither perspecuity nor sola scriptura, nor in the adage that "the scripture hath but one sense and that is the plain sense." And yet despite all this I'm the only non-Protestant on this board who defends the absolute veracity and inerrancy of the Bible.
Zionist:
So you are no longer even a Protestant Christian, so why concern yourself what the Catholic Church does, I would expect you should care less about what is going us with us than your former Protestant church.
And Saint Augustine was not the only one to reject literalism for every bible passage. Origen of Alexandria, and I for the record am not someone who is anti-Origen, stated the Bible is to be interpreted 3 ways, Literally, Allegorically and spiritually, and from this we get what today is the different sense of Scripture. His mentor, Saint Clement of Alexandria would also be in the camp of the “Allegorical” interpretation of Genesis as would Saint Hillary of Potiers.
There were Fathers such as Saint Basil the Great, Saint Ambrose of Milan who favored a literal day by day interpretation. Regardless, this was never an issue that any Pope of Ecumenical council excommunicated anyone as a heretic over.
In addition, I do believe there was a Jewish Philosophical school that came about in the 1st/2nd century to counter Christianity and in that movement we also see some allegorical interpretation of Genesis. But I am in no way a scholar of Jewish 1st and 2nd century philosophy.
I can totally get on board with your concerns until you bring this up. Not sure why you feel you have to do so.